This email recently hit our in boxes. It might resonate with some of you out there so please have a read and follow up if interested. It is not a league recommendation nor are the league intending to be involved in it. As a club tool it is for you to decide if you need any help with running your club nights.

Hi

  As a committee member of various badminton clubs I became fed up of the constant faffing and complaining around the peg board.  People either taking to long to pick, complaining about ‘selective’ picking; pegs flying off and being lost/broken, searching for a blank or ‘reusable’ peg for a new joiner.  So I decided to create an App instead and Court Manager was born.

The App has been trialled for over a year now with two of my local clubs and has proved  very successful.  The choosing of ‘fair’ games based on arrival time, games played, levels / mixed balance (if you are a mixed club) with an auto pick feature ensures a court is never empty.  The monitoring of electronic verses traditional pegboard has shown a 30%+ increase in court utilisation, which obviously means more games for your members.

If you are a coach or you have someone who chooses games at your club then you can also put the App into manual mode.

Administration is locked behind a password so that the committee can setup the session configuration.   Each time the App is opened a new session automatically starts with the set configuration.

Have matches on a club night? no problem, just remove those courts to start with and then re-add them  once they become available.   You can do this dynamically, so if you ‘share’ a court between match and club night this can be accommodated.

The App contains a player database so when they arrive to play they can just pick themselves off the list.  New players can be added at any time during a session and they get automatically added to the database.

The App is available on both Android and iOS devices.  Its not very power hungry so an older tablet should still work.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.springcode.courtmanager

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/court-manager/id1340271798?ls=1&mt=8

A video preview of the App is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tUqvo6kQRQ&t=6s

There is a nominal cost for the App of £9.99 which will allow us to support the App into the future.

Later in the year we will be releasing a Website which, if you choose to, can communicate with the App and collect each session’s statistics allowing you to track membership attendance, games played and court utilisation over time.  There will be a small subscription charge for the Website to cover running costs, however if you subscribe the cost of the App above will be discounted off your first subscription.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Many Thanks

Gavin

Gavin Shefford

League Secretary

Southampton and District Badminton Association.